That was followed by 11 years as a member of the
New York Yankees, where they won five
AL East titles (1976–78, 1980 and 1981), four AL pennants (1976–78 and
1981), and two
World Series championships (1977–78).
After center fielder
Mickey Rivers was traded, during the
1979 season, Piniella became the Yankees leadoff hitter. One of the more
underrated players of the 1970s (he made just one all-star team), he
compiled 1705 lifetime hits despite not playing full time for just under
half of his career.

He wore uniform number 24 for the Orioles, and 23 for the Indians. His
longer stretches were wearing number 9 for the Royals, and 14 for the
Yankees.

Known for his often aggressive and sometimes explosive behavior, Piniella
has been ejected 61 times in his managerial career.[1]
Among active managers, only
Joe Torre,
Tony LaRussa and all-time leader
Bobby Cox
have received more ejections.[2]
He often sends his pitching coach to remove a pitcher from the game.[citation
needed] He once got into a clubhouse scuffle with
pitcher
Rob Dibble while with the Reds, which was caught on video, ending with
the two being pulled apart and Lou screaming, "You don't want to be treated
like a man!"[citation
needed]

On August 21, 1990, in a home game against the
Chicago Cubs,[3]
Piniella argued with umpire
Dutch Rennert after
Barry Larkin was called out at first at the end of the fifth ending.
After throwing his hat down, Piniella was ejected. Afterwards, Piniella
ripped first base out of the ground and threw it twice toward right field.
The Reds went on to win the game 8–1. [4][5][3]

In the Mariners'
30-season history, they have had nine winning seasons and reached the
playoffs four times. Seven of the winning seasons and all of the playoff
appearances occurred during Piniella's ten years with the Mariners.

Piniella is the only manager in Mariners history to have a winning record
in his tenure with the team, while serving at least one season.

In a game on September 18,
2002 in a 3–2 (10) win against
the Texas Rangers, Piniella came out to argue a call in the bottom of
the ninth in which the umpire called out
Ben Davis
after a close play at first and was immediately tossed by first base umpire
C.B. Bucknor after throwing down his hat. Afterwards, he kicked his hat
several times, aggressively approached Bucknor as he was screaming in his
face, and kicked dirt on him as well. After being restrained by first base
coach
Johnny Moses, he then ripped first base from its mooring then threw it
down the right field foul line twice after he imitated the umpire tossing
him out.[6]

In his first two seasons with the
Devil Rays, Piniella was able to improve the team somewhat, and they won
a franchise-record 70 games in
2004, which was also their first season in which they did not finish
last in their division, which he also guaranteed (he also jokingly said,
after saying it several times, "If I say it any more times I might have
us winning the
World Series!") During the
2005 season, Piniella was very critical of Rays front office for
focusing too much on the future and not enough on immediate results, and for
not increasing payroll quickly enough to field a competitive team (they
started the season with a $30 million payroll, which was the lowest in the
major leagues; the
Yankees payroll in 2005 was over $208 million).

Tensions eventually made Piniella step down as the Devil Rays' manager on
September 21,
2005. Sweet Lou had one more season remaining on his contract from
October 2002, but agreed to a $2.2 million buyout, in lieu of $4.4 million
that he was due, had he decided to manage the team for one more season. He
would have also received $1.25 million in deferred salary from 2003.

On October 16,
2006, Piniella agreed to a three-year contract to manage the
Chicago Cubs. The contract is for $10 million over three seasons with a
$5 million option for a fourth year [7]

Famous for his anger and meltdowns, he showed it during a press
conference after a Cubs-Reds
game on April 13,
2007, when Cubs ace
Carlos Zambrano blew a five run lead in the 5th inning in which the Reds
scored 6 runs, winning the game 6–5. A reporter asked him what was not
working for the Cubs. He responded in a loud, angry voice, "What the hell do
you think isn't working?! You saw the damn game! … This guy is your ace, you
got a 5–0 lead with the eighth and ninth hitters coming up, you feel pretty
good about that inning and all of a sudden it turns into a six-run inning,”
Piniella said, obviously still agitated but calmer. “And then I bring in the
reliever[8]
who’s throwing 30-to-40-foot curveballs to boot. I can see. I can start to
see some of the ways this team has lost ballgames. I can see it. We’ve got
to correct it obviously. This game here is one that got away from us that
really shouldn’t.” In a similar meltdown after the May 17, 2007, game
against the Mets, Lou stated, "I don't care about feelings."[citation
needed]

On June 2, 2007, Piniella was ejected as a Cub for the first time after
throwing down his cap, kicking dirt at third base umpire
Mark
Wegner, and kicking his cap three times. He was arguing a call that
Angel Pagan was out at third attempting to advance on a wild pitch. In
the post-game press conference, he said Pagan looked safe from the dugout,
but acknowledged that, after seeing the replay, the umpire made the right
call. However, he also said he was going to argue no matter if Pagan was
safe or out: "it didn't make a damn bit of difference." He was suspended for
four games, the longest of his career. The Cubs, 22–31 in their 53 games
through June 2, went on from there to capture the National League Central
Division title. Piniella led the Cubs to their second straight divisional
title in 2008. It was the first time the franchise had made it to
consecutive postseasons since winning the National League pennant three
years in a row from 1906–1908.

Despite Pinella's Cubs dominating the National League for most of 2008,
clinching the Central Division with the best record in the NL, the tide
turned when the Cubs went up against the
Los Angeles Dodgers in the
2008 NLDS. Pinella could only watch as the Cubs' offense suddenly
sputtered, scoring only 6 runs in all three games, and his defense committed
4 errors in Game 2 to pick up talk of the
Curse of the Billy Goat once again. Pinella's Cubs were swept by Joe
Torre's Dodgers and outscored 20–6. He could only laugh, blaming himself and
his entire team for failing to produce. He did mention the top of his
lineup's failure to contribute.
Alfonso Soriano went 1-14,
Kosuke Fukudome only 1-10, and
Derrek
Lee, Pinella's #3 hitter, drove in zero runs the entire series despite
batting .545 and going 6–11. After the game 2 loss to the Dodgers in the
NLDS, a reporter asked Piniella, enraged about the loss, about starting
Fukudome. Piniella responded, "I'm going to play [Mike] Fontenot or Reed
Johnson or somebody else, and that's the end of that story. The kid is
struggling, and there's no sense sending him out there anymore." Despite
that, they lost Game 3 and, oddly enough, Fukudome went 1-2 when he came
into the game later on.

During their broadcast of Game 3 of the
2006 American League Championship Series, Piniella was commenting on
player
Marco Scutaro who had struggled during the regular season but was
playing well during the series. He stated that to expect Scutaro to continue
playing well would be similar to finding a
wallet on
Friday and expecting to find another wallet on Saturday and Sunday. Piniella
then commented that player
Frank Thomas needed to get "en fuego" which is Spanish for "on
fire", because he was "frio" meaning "cold". Lyons responded by
saying that Piniella was "hablaing [sic]
Español" and added,"I still can't find my wallet. I don't understand
him, and I don't want to sit close to him now."[9]

FOX fired Lyons for making the above remarks, which FOX determined to be
racially insensitive.[10]
Piniella later defended Lyons saying Lyons was "kidding" and that "There
isn't a racist bone in his [Lyons'] body".[11]